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The formula is simple. It involves just three basic ingredients. And yet, year after year, so many generally decent practitioners get it so embarrassingly wrong. I am, of course, talking about what it takes to create a super Super Bowl advertisement. The fact of the matter is that these three basic ingredients are the same three things that go into making a super brand. The stuff, as it were, that gives a brand an edge in the market. If you can’t combine these three essential elements in just the right way, consumers won’t know what it is you stand for. Your organization won’t be able to do the brilliant branding required to bring your idea to life. Your customers won’t be able to grasp and tell your story the way you want it told. Your competition will eat you for lunch. And – full circle - the press and branding pundits will trash your Super Bowl ads.

I am not here to trash Super Bowl ads, directly, anyway. There are plenty of Monday-morning branding pundits who are already on this. I am here to remind those who may have forgotten the simple formula for brand – and branding – greatness (there’s always next year, guys), and to give kudos to those whose ads I use as example. Without further ado:

A laundry detergent? Come on, laundry detergents can’t possibly make for interesting subject matter. Yes, they can, and, in this case, P&G and its Tide detergent hit the target with their Super Bowl ad spot on. You see, the first ingredient required to give a brand an edge is to ensure that it stands for something different that people care about. It’s called “relevant differentiation” and there isn’t any way for a company to go the distance unless it has identified a differentiated meaning for its brand and determined that it matters to anyone. Not only did P&G’s ad drive home the point that its Tide detergent gets out stains better than any other brand out there (not having dirty clothing is relevant, isn’t it?), but it did so in an incredibly funny way. Not gratuitously funny, mind you. Any advertiser can be funny just for the sake of getting a few yuks. This ad was funny in a way that was relevant to the venue (a stain in the shape of a “blessed” football icon whose presence makes a celebrity of the mess-maker) and equally important, relevant to the product and its promise. This made it all the more compelling. How many times have you seen an ad that made you laugh only to forget what the ad was for? Tide wins one of my top three prizes for creating a winning Super Bowl ad because it so cleverly adhered to one of the basic rules of brand-building. Stay close to what makes your product relevant and different and tell your story in a relevantly different way. This was no Hail Mary pass.

Next, a company that makes an annual appearance on game day, but this time that gets my vote for its happily unexpected take on the topic: the charming Budweiser tale of the little Clydesdale that grew up and succeeded in life. What made this spot so powerful was that it tapped into something authentic about the brand in a happily unexpected way. Ingredient two? For a brand, or its branding, to succeed in life, it must be perceived as authentic. As those in the marketing business know, authenticity is essential. A brand must stay true to its values and not try to be something it’s not if it wants to pass muster with today’s savvy and skeptical consumers. From the inside out, the voice, the texture, the look and the behavior, the most powerful brands never veer away from the original intent of the ideas on which they are based. Brands that get authenticity right work on a gut level. This Super Bowl Bud ad was a simple story, but a story that immediately tugged on the heartstrings of anyone who has watched a kid grow up. The execution was eloquent and conjured up all the right associations we have with the brand. Clydesdale’s are as part of the Super Bowl football tradition as, well, as beer. The authenticity was a key to its edge in the line-up of same-as, same-old ads.

The last, but not least, ad that made my very short list was the incredibly emotional spot for Jeep. It wasn’t the emotional content that got my inner branding professional revved up, per se (although it was incredibly affecting in execution and tonality). Rather, it was that the company that sponsored the ad knew the formula for successful branding and paid extra attention to the third ingredient: Stick to your core DNA or, in this instance, go back to your core DNA to reinforce what makes your brand special. This spot, for which Oprah Winfrey does the voiceover, celebrates the military personnel and their families who have given so much for our country. Almost documentary in style, it makes heroes of the everyday heroes, the soldiers and their loved ones back home, while referencing the fact that it’s Jeep, the original military vehicle just doing its workman-like part to support the troops wherever and however required. It’s when you find something that’s already real and true about a brand and build on it, as opposed to saying, “Hey, what should we stand for today” that strong and winning branding happens. It flows naturally and is believable. Much like last year’s Chrysler spot, in which the company zigged while every other car company zagged to make their points, Jeep, in my view, took home top honors in the category again this year.

So super secret ingredients for creating super Super Bowl ads? Nah, just three simple ingredients. Make sure your brand stands for something different that people care about and express it in a relevantly different way. Keep your efforts authentically connected to what people already associate with your brand. If you’re looking for some way to reinvent your brand, go back to your roots. If this doesn’t work, you can always try magical fairies, buxom blonds, or Jamaican-speaking guys from Minnesota. It’s your call. Just remember the Monday-morning pundits will be waiting.